Made strong efforts to connect the Madison campus with the rest of the community

As an Avid sports fan Shalala was very involved in the Athletic Department and she commonly called herself the Badgers' No. 1 fan. “She didn't think a world-class university should have a second-class athletic program” Pat Richter

In the fall of 1989, she fired athletic director Ade Sponberg and football coach Don Morton, replacing them with Pat Richter and Barry Alvarez, the two most publicly prominent figures in the revitalized program

In the spring of 1990, she supported, and some contend engineered, one of the more controversial athletic decisions in UW history – the cutting of five sports, including baseball.

She left Madison to work for President Bill Clinton's administration as secretary of Health and Human Services, and then to president at the University of Miami (Fla.)